


A Meal Shared Leads to More

by Merfilly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Requited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 13:28:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9822683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: He's known her for eight years, and in the last three months, he's been co-parenting with her. Maybe it's time for Rex to tackle what he really wants with Ahsoka.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [And So It Goes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7760992) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly). 



Time to themselves was a very rare thing, even as the galaxy stepped back from the war that had consumed it for so long. Rex took in the low lighting, the two plates, the lack of their resident biter, and raised an eyebrow.

It wasn't that he didn't appreciate Ahsoka as a mature woman; he'd all but drowned in that fact over the last three months of watching her parenting Mara. He laughed off the fact that Mara called him _buir_ but all the other men were _ba'vodu_ , putting it down to her young mind latching on to him as the man that was around most often.

But there was the rub, wasn't it? His men were all settling into relationships with each other or the locals, and he was usually either up at the house helping with the twins… or with Ahsoka, helping with Mara.

"Something I should know about?" Rex finally asked, even as he worked his boots off in deference to it being her quarters, where barefoot was the norm. She gave him a half-puzzled look, then shook her head. 

"Sabé offered to take all the younglings with her and the other ladies for an overnight to Gungan City. I thought… maybe you'd share a meal with me, without me fighting with a picky eater."

Rex half-smiled at that. Mara didn't much care for a lot of the meat-only dishes, and Ahsoka did struggle with making a balanced meal that tasted right to humans sometimes. He'd picked up cooking, and tried to do it for them as often as his own duties allowed.

"I'd love to share dinner with you, Ahsoka," he agreed, going to wash up before joining her at the table, settling on the pillow in front of his spot.

His spot… he had lots of those in these quarters. At the table, he always sat here. The couch end closest to the door was his. If they both put Mara to bed, he was supposed to sit on the side closer to the door. 

His mind half-wondered on which side of the bed would be his, if he ever stayed the night. Somewhere in the first year after settling on the planet, she'd just stopped coming and napping with him in the middle of the night. He knew she still sometimes shared beds with the brothers that had trauma and nightmares, but she never came to be held by him, like she had all through the war.

She had grown up, grown past that need, apparently, and there was always a small part of him that ached to know it. It didn't matter that he shared leading the 501st with her. It didn't matter that she shared Mara so fully with him. There was another layer that was missing, one he wanted, but didn't know if he was allowed to reach for.

They'd known each other for most of eight years now, and Rex knew, beyond the shadow of any doubts, that he would follow Ahsoka Tano into the depths of hell and back, yet he couldn't make himself finally cross the bridge from friendship to more… in case there was no 'more'. He knew she cared for him, knew that she sought his company more than any other brother, but he had no idea what she was looking for in a relationship.

He didn't want to admit that he absolutely hated seeing the way some of the men flirted with her, the way she flirted back. Before Mara had come into their lives, he had hated the nights she spent in Theed, or her trips back to Coruscant and that pretty Senator there that she liked. It wasn't that he wanted her to be celibate, or that he was jealous of her chosen partners. It was more that he couldn't determine if he had what it took to be chosen by her, for that.

And he hated himself for ever getting hung up on it, when what they shared transcended physicality. 

"You're thinking a lot, Rex." 

He glanced at her, taking note it was his name, not one of the many nicknames she used for him. Her tone was serious, and she wasn't smiling, which was just criminal, when they were off duty.

"Enjoying the food, trying to figure out what spices you used this time," he said, a polite lie, and one she allowed him, not pushing. He did focus on the food, and slowly realized it was one of his favorite dishes, using spices native to Ryloth. Ponds had introduced it to him, when Ponds was recovering from that fiasco with Boba Fett and Aurra Sing. He glanced over at Ahsoka, but she was looking at her bowl, eating slowly, in a silence that was unusual between them. He tried to decipher the lekku shading, the way they were hanging, but she'd learned to keep them more blank in recent years.

It was frustrating, as Rex felt like he was in the middle of an exercise without all the operational guidelines.

"This is nice," he finally said. "I really like the meal, and I know it's not always easy to get Ryloth spices here."

Ahsoka gave him a small smile. "I picked them up the last time we went to help with the rebuilding."

"That's been months ago," he answered.

"I wanted to save it for a night like tonight, when I could actually treat you to a good meal," she told him. "You deserve to have good things, Rex."

"I'd say I have an almost perfect life, Ahsoka," he said as he met her eyes, feeling the press of a critical decision. "My men are as safe as we can make them. My general and his wife are willing to let me spoil their biters. And I'm sharing the raising of a special little biter with the one woman I respect more than any other." He saw the breath catch and the lick of her lips that indicated something in his words had affected her.

Did she… was there…

"What, Rex, would actually make it completely perfect?" Ahsoka asked, and Rex noticed the lekku were far from blank now, their shading going deep and vibrant in a way he had only seen on her when she was…

When she was flirting intently with the Pantoran, or making some Nabooian all but fall at her feet before leaving for Theed with them.

"Sharing the life of that woman, more completely," he answered, gathering his courage to carry him across the bridge at last. She reached out over the space between them, her fingers finding his and twining with them.

"I hope you're ready to learn a perfect life like that is still going to be full of trouble," she answered, using her other hand to take a bite of her food.

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I am surprised that my brain finally settled on just HOW LONG they took to become a couple. Everyone around them thought they were, I am certain.


End file.
